Ritchie was among the donors contributing $41 million for the project. Ritchie donated nearly $27 million, making it the single-largest gift in the school’s history back in 2013.

Other donors include Betty Knoebel, widow of Denver food-service pioneer Ferdinand “Fritz” Knoebel, and the estate of the late William C. Petersen, an alumnus of the DU School of Engineering who was part of the Gates Rubber Co. in Denver.

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The 110,000-square-foot building also houses the Knoebel Institute for Healthy Aging. It is located on the southern part of campus, a formerly vacant space between Olin Hall and Trevorrow Hall and the Newman Center for Performing Arts.

Inside, there are classrooms but also lab space is designed for a variety of studies. A large open area will mimic today’s trendy co-working spaces, such as downtown’s Galvanize, where chance meetings between startups occur all the time. It also will house a cafe to encourage students from any discipline to at least visit.

​Tamara Chuang covers personal technology and local tech news for The Denver Post. She loves figuring out how things work and explaining them either through words, graphics or video. Find out how to contact her at dpo.st/tamara

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